embassy in Moscow handed the Soviet Foreign Ministry a copy of the speech that Kennedy planned to give one hour later along with a letter from the president to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Dobrynin arrived at the State Department at 6:00 p.m. Secretary of State Dean Rusk sent Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, an urgent summons for a meeting. Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and Disarmament meeting of the National Security Council did not have to do a last-minute rewrite of Kennedy’s speech. To Kennedy’s relief, however, it turned out that the “important statement” was a goodbye from Gromyko. Had the Soviets learned that the administration had uncovered their secret and were now seeking to preempt the president’s speech? That would create political problems at home and diplomatic problems abroad for the White House. Kennedy’s strategy had hinged on being the first to announce the presence of the missiles to the world. Kennedy received a scare just before noon when Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko delayed his return flight to Moscow and the Soviet mission to the United Nations announced that he would make an important announcement. He also spoke by phone with British prime minister Harold Macmillan, while former secretary of state Dean Acheson met with French president Charles de Gaulle in Paris to convey the administration’s message.

The lawmakers who made it to the White House got a personal briefing on the crisis from Kennedy late that afternoon. Those congressional leaders who weren’t in Washington were told to catch commercial flights or special flights arranged by the U.S. Twenty leaders from both parties were told that the president wanted to speak with them that day. Administration officials spent the bulk of that Monday, the seventh day of the crisis, briefing cabinet officials, members of Congress, and foreign leaders about the situation.

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